What Distinguishes Nursing Shoes From Regular Footwear?

If you’re a professional nurse, whether it be a practicing or a registered one, you’re going to have to have decent, professional footwear that will support your day to day activities on the job. More often than not, your days at the hospital will be way longer than 8 hours. Sometimes, you even need to work more than 5 days a week. If you think you’re going to be able to pull that off without wearing the proper nursing shoes, then you’d be wrong. You absolutely owe it to yourself to get good support on your feet, because you’ll spend lots of time standing up straight for hours on end. You can’t do that on worn down sneakers that offer no support, or you will develop foot health problems, which can then lead to ankle pain, knee pain, lower back pain or worse… all 3 at a time.

When it comes to nursing, the first thing that comes to mind is that you’ll have a rough life pursuing this career. But when you get yourself a couple of good nursing shoes, then your job can actually be a whole lot more comfortable than you had anticipated it would be. So if you’re a nurse and you want to buy good shoes for yourself, then what ar esome of the things that you should be looking at in order to make sure you can stand up comfortably the whole day at the hospital, where you perform your duties?

What To Look For In Nursing Shoes?

If anything, a nurse needs really great arch support. This means that your feet’s arches are going to be able to rest a bit, even while you are standing up or walking around. Getting support for your arches is going to have a positive effect on your whole foot.

Naturally, the shoes should also be very lightweight. If you are going to strap the equivalent of a pair of heavy bricks to your feet, then you are going to have a rough time while performing your nurse duties. When you wear ligt shoes, you are going to walk a lot more speedily than with heavy shoes. You will also not experience foot fatigue so quickly.

What Kind Of Nursing Shoes Are There?

Clogs

Clogs are designed to make you comfortable. It’s not without reason that these are the most popular kind of shoe for nurses. They are closed by design, which protects you from spills of fluids. But they have open backs, so they are easy to put on and off. They are great for using in the operating theater. Some of them have a strap that will let you adjust them to your personal liking.

Tennis Shoes

Tennis shoes can be a really comfortable fit, if this is the kind of footwear that you prefer. They’re pretty much designed to make you move quickly, and that’s precisely what nurses need, if they have to move from one room to the next in order to treat impatient patients. They will give you some added stability as well.

Slippers

This kind of footwear is very easy to put on and take off, since they have a fairly open design. Otherwise they wouldn’t be slippers. In operating theaters, no external footwear is allowed. So every time that a nurse enters or exits the operating theater, she needs to change her shoes. This is were slippers come in handy.

Other Things To Keep In Mind

A nurse’s shoes need to:

Improve her comfort.

Improve her speed.

Help her prevent accidents from slipping.

Give her good arch support to prevent foot pain.

Help her keep a good posture.

Keep her cool all day long

Be easy to maintain.

Be durable, so the nurse doesn’t have to replace shoes every 3 months.

Protect her from fluid spills.

Nursing Shoe Brands

There are a number of popular nursing shoe brands out there. Let’s discuss a few of them briefly.

Alegria

There is a very popular shoe from Alegria, named the Keli Professional Slip Resistant work shoe. This is a good example of a shoe that works well against foot pain, ankle pain, heel pain, knee pain and back pain. It’s available in many different colors as well, so to each their own.

Merrell

The Merrell is loved by many nurses all over the world. They are designed with comfort in mind. Take for example the Encore Pro Grip Slip Resistant work shoe. This is a professsional work shoe that resists slipping and will give you the confidence that you need in order to stand up for long hours.

Dansko

Dansko is the brand that everybody knows. They have a Professional Oiled Leather Clog and a Professional Patent clog, to name just a few of their more popular clogs. Dansko shoes come in all sorts of styles and sizes. Most nurses will be happy to wear Danskos, since they feel good and look good at the same time.

Author Biography

This page was authored by Brian Bradshaw, who represents the Boot Bomb. Brian is backed up by an expert team, made up of experienced family and friends, all of which are knowledgeable in the ways of footwear and/or hiking. His ancestors used to own a shoe store for almost a century. He has lived and breathed footwear for as long as he can remember.

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Hi, I'm Brian Bradshaw and I'm all about the hiking life. Welcome to the Boot Bomb, where I write about my favorite footwear & outdoor gear to my heart's content!

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